New New New Doctor
by Charity Angel
Summary: ONESHOT. Post-Journey's End. Rose struggles with 'her' Doctor.


Author's note - so this has probably been done to death by now, but I've only just found my manuscript that I wrote right after 'Journey's End' and thought I should post it anyway. Hope you like it.

All normal disclaimers apply. I do not own David Tennant (more's the pity), or any of the others. They belong to the BBC and to RTD.  


* * *

Rose felt the Doctor's hand slip into hers, just as it always had before. The fit was perfect, but the feel wasnt quite right: it was too warm to be the Doctor's hand. But it squeezed hers just like the Doctor's once did, if a little harder than she remembered. She would have to get used to these differences in him.

Rose could hear Jackie on the phone to Pete already, demanding that he arrange decent transport back to civilisation. ("I know. Bloody Norway...") She only listened with half an ear, because she was still so focussed on the not-Doctor, and the space where the TARDIS had stood, only seconds earlier.

"Torchwood are sending a car here to take us to the nearest air base," Jackie informed the motionless pair. "We can get a zeppelin to London from there. And don't bother to move at all, we'll just manhandle you into the car. I don't know why I bother sometimes - you're an ungrateful pair, you know."

The Doctor blinked his dark, haunted eyes. "Sorry, Jackie, what?"

Jackie sighed. "Never mind. Talking to myself, as usual."

The Doctor nodded listlessly. "Right."

"Ooh, don't think I wont slap you again, Doctor," Jackie warned. "I'm not putting up with this all the way back."

"This is really it, isn't it?" Rose said suddenly. "Stuck here, without the TARDIS..."

The Doctor shrugged. "We'll cope," he said. "Just like we talked about last time, on the Sanctuary base."

"But my job is to find you," Rose said.

"Look at how well you did, then," he said. "You deserve a promotion."

The Doctor was remarkably sullen on the overnight flight, with only the odd hint of his normal humour and curiosity shining through his gloomy expression. Jackie wasn't surprised, therefore, when Rose came to her room, crying.

"He'll get better, love," she assured her distraught daughter. "This must be a terrible shock for him, being stuck on one planet, being mortal. That's got to be weird."

"I know," Rose hiccoughed. "But Mum, I don't want him to be like this again. We got past this stage ages ago."

"But won't it be worth it, sweetheart, in the end?" Jackie asked, giving Rose a comforting squeeze. "You always knew that he wouldn't let himself be with you, no matter how much he loves you. Now he can."

Rose shrugged. "Maybe."

"Take it slow," Jackie advised wisely. "You'll have to let him find out who he is now. But he'll come to you, when he's ready."

"I'm not sure I want him to," Rose sobbed.

"Oh, you will," Jackie assured her, stroking the long blonde hair soothingly. "You might be frightened right now, but you'll want him back eventually. I know what it's like, remember? With your dad?"

Rose didnt return to her own room that night, but slept fitfully next to her mother. The Doctor, likewise, did not sleep well, his dreams haunted by Daleks and his own face staring at him with a mixture of horror and piteous understanding. He was still tired when Jackie gently shook him awake, saying that they were approaching London and he should get dressed.

It was Jackie, not Rose, who held his hand comfortingly as they disembarked from the zeppelin. Pete Tyler's eyebrows rose questioningly at the sight of the Doctor, but no-one seemed willing to explain to him what had gone on. Rose didn't meet anyone's eyes as she trudged up to the house and shut herself in her room. Jackie tried to pretend that everything was normal, chattering away as she showed the Doctor around the house, introduced him to little Tony and fixed him a cup of tea and a sandwich. But Pete could hear the edge of worry in the otherwise easy chatter: Jackie knew that all was not well. The Doctor himself looked terrible, with huge dark circles under his eyes. He picked listlessly at the sandwich until Jackie swept him away again, this time taking him upstairs to a guest room, still yakking away, getting him to help her make the bed. She finally left him looking totally bewildered and clutching the clean pyjamas she had handed him.

She made it all the way back to Pete in the kitchen before she allowed herself to cry.

"He's so different," she wept into her husband's shoulder. "I've been praying for him to tell me to shut up, like he used to."

"Jacks, what is going on?" Pete demanded wearily.

Jackie stared up at him as if he was the alien instead of the Doctor.

"Oh, I dunno," she said eventually. "All I know is that there's two of him, only this ones half human, and he's staying here, with Rose. But he's changed - he's like he used to be, right when I first met him." She swiped at her eyes angrily. "They'll be all right, won't they?"

"Is that man the Doctor?" Pete asked, feeling more confused than he did before.

Jackie shrugged. "How the hell should I know? Rose seemed to think so at first, but now..."

Jackie seemed to find a lot of 'blue' jobs that needed doing around the house over the next few days, thus keeping the Doctor busy. Pete, under instruction, dragged Rose off to work every morning and kept her so busy that she didnt have time to mope. Evening meals were generally the only time that Rose and the Doctor saw each other, but the silence that stretched between them was uncomfortable. Jackie gave it a week before she boycotted her plan, left the Doctor in the house on the pretence of going to the supermarket and phoned Pete, instructing him to meet her at a local restaurant after work.

The Doctor blinked in surprise when Rose appeared, alone. She looked equally surprised by the situation.

"Jackie set this up, didn't she?" he asked eventually, with a hint of a smile.

Rose wrapped her arms around herself self-consciously. "Looks like it."

"Chips?" the Doctor suggested.

"You really are the most rubbish date ever," Rose said as she handed over her own money for the chips.

"Am not," the Doctor protested. "I took you to loads of places."

Rose gave him a sideways glance. "Yeah, loads of _free_ places. Most of which nearly got me killed."

"Well... We had fun, didnt we?"

Rose met his eyes finally, and she couldnt help but smile. "Yeah," she said thickly. She then swallowed her chip and added: "Yeah, we did."

"I meant it, you know," the Doctor said as he folded the paper back around his chips.

"I know."

There was a moment of silence as he waited for her to elaborate then:

"Am I not enough for you?"

Rose shrugged. "I just dunno any more. I didn't expect this, and you're so different, but the same." She ran a hand through her hair. "That don't make sense, I know."

"I dont feel all that different," he said. "Except for having one heart, and I can't hold my breath, but other than that I'm still me. Just a 'me' who will grow old and die. Even that isn't as scary a thought as it was a week ago. Not if..."

He broke off, a fact that grabbed Rose's attention.

"I really hate it when you do that," she said. "You start to say something lovely, then miss the end off."

The Doctor shrugged, then fixed her with a curious look. "What makes you say that was 'lovely'?"

"You were going to say that being human isn't so scary if you're with me," Rose replied, sounding very certain of herself.

"I thought I was supposed to be the psychic one," the Doctor said, awarding her the flash of a smile before growing quiet again. "I know we need to take this slowly, and I didn't want to pressure you."

"And here I thought you'd want to get on with your life now you're measuring it in decades instead of centuries," Rose countered.

The next thing she knew, the Doctor had his lips pressed against hers, kissing her with barely restrained passion.


End file.
